


The Edge of the World

by Masu_Trout



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:08:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23842021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Masu_Trout/pseuds/Masu_Trout
Summary: Aerith and Nanaki and a Cosmo Canyon sunrise.
Relationships: Aerith Gainsborough & Red XIII | Nanaki
Comments: 5
Kudos: 16
Collections: What Fen Do (Instead of Going Outside), When Death Loves Flamingos





	The Edge of the World

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Resilur](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Resilur/gifts).



Cosmo Canyon's thick with dust. Aerith's been here barely a day and her dress is already stiff with it; it sticks under her fingernails, finds its way into her boots until even her socks feel gritty, leaves her eyes watering and her face uncomfortably powdery. 

Aerith dangles her feet over the cliff-edge she's perched on, breathing the dust in deep, and wishes she could stay here forever.

It's so— _much_ , is the thing, fresh air and sunlight so bright she's actually getting her very first sunburn. And there might not be many flowers around, here in this rust-red desert canyon, but the scrub and stunted trees growing in every crevasse they can manage to take root in are somehow just as beautiful.

If only her mother could've seen this place. She would've been right at home here.

There's soft footsteps on the path behind her, too deft to be human; Aerith turns and almost calls out, _Red!_ , but catches herself just in time.

"Nanaki!" she says instead and pats a spot in the dirt next to her. "How are things going?"

He sighs as he pads over to her, ears pinned back and tail lashing. 

"Grandfather's being stubborn," he tells her unhappily, and then, eyeing her spot on the cliff as he curls up with his paws underneath him, "and so are you. What are you going to do if you fall?"

"Die, probably," she admits, smiling wide, and laughs when that makes Nanaki roll his eyes. His body language is such a perfect mix of human and _not_. She can't help but find it charming.

The Cosmo Canyon locals have been warning her about the cliffs for days. Eventually, she thinks, they'll realize she's not planning to listen: no one who's spent as many years as she did hopping roof-to-roof to dodge Shinra patrols could ever be afraid of heights. Sure, the drop's longer here—a dizzying plunge into absolutely nothing, the ground so far away all anyone would ever catch is her dust cloud as she hits the ground—but when it comes down to it that doesn't really matter.

If she falls, she'll die, so she just won't fall. She's never mis-stepped before; no reason to start now.

But Nanaki, when she tells him her logic, doesn't seem especially impressed. He growls low in his throat and, with a shake of his head, says, "Grandfather always says there's a name for cautious mountain climbers, you know."

"Oh?"

" _Alive._ "

" _Boring_ , more like," Aerith teases, making him grumble to himself some more.

It isn't that Nanaki is wrong—she knows she'll be dead in a heartbeat if she slips too close to the edge, knows she has no idea how to traverse the rocky crags that are a world away from anything she's ever known. But clinging to the edge of survival, wondering what'll happen if she takes just one wrong move, isn't exactly a new feeling. And here she gets fresh air and a beautiful sunrise to go along with the risk.

"Do you know if we're heading out again?" She shades her eyes against the sun as she stares out towards the canyon. They've been here some time already. Barret must be getting antsy by now.

"You should be able to continue on soon, hopefully. Cloud is talking to Grandfather again." His scowl—the expression entirely recognizable even on an inhuman face—is back in full force. 

_You_ , he says, not _us_. Aerith hopes he'll change his mind. Traveling with Nanaki is wonderful, even if he does smell like wet dog whenever it rains. And she's gotten used to their little group, eco-terrorists and cat robots and all. She'd hate to lose even a single one of them.

"Something wrong?" she asks.

His tail lashes, sending sparks of flame dancing through the air. "Grandfather wants me to... well, it's not important."

"If Bugenhagen thinks it is—"

"It's about my father," he says, the word _father_ snapped out the same way Barret says _Shinra_.

"Ah," Aerith says, "I'm sorry."

He'd told them, earlier, about his coward of a father, a wastrel who abandoned his family and his home both. Aerith looks at him now: jowls pulled back into a silent snarl, fur bristling, shame and embarrassment and grief written into every line of his body, and she can't help but think about the canyon cliffs again. One misstep and—

But she's never gained by hesitating. She lays a hand on his shoulder, ignoring the way he starts at her touch, and doesn't say a word. Just lets him sit there next to her, until finally the tension starts to drain from his hunched over form.

"I don't want to talk about it," he says finally, for a moment sounding like the sullen teenager he's apparently supposed to be.

"I get it," Aerith says. "No talking, then, all right? Just sunlight."

Nanaki laughs a little at that. He relaxes fraction by fraction against the warm Cosmo dust, stares out over the cliffside with Aerith's hand on his shoulder. 

The sun rises higher. Somewhere in the distance, Aerith can hear birds. It's everything she ever wanted the world to be.


End file.
